PinkySwear Launch

Its official!  As some of you know, I've been working on a jewelry line with my good friend/old boss Alina.  As kindred souls, we've shared the same frustration at the lack of any great "mommy" jewelry.  We wanted to show off our babies names, but couldn't find anything that we really wanted to actually wear.  So we took our combined design and retail experience and came up with PinkySwear.    

And (drumroll please) as of yesterday our line is in the Santa Monica location of This Little Piggy Wears Cotton, and by this weekend will also be in Newport Beach, Montecito, and Santa Barbara locations.  We are so excited!!  Our website too will hopefully be up by this weekend, and I'll be sure to post when that is up. 

 In the meantime, here's some pictures of what we're doing.  All the pieces are made from 99.9 pure silver.  The silver we use is recycled silver that is combined with an organic binder, that we sculpt and fire (like clay).  When you fire the pieces, the binder burns away and you are left with the (almost) pure silver.  It makes the silver a really nice pale color, and all the pieces have this really great handmade, organic feel to them.  And since there is more silver content than sterling, it doesn't tarnish as easily.  We're also really excited that all the pieces are really flexible, in that we can add (or subtract) whatever you want from them.  So if you want a piece to show your love for your babies, your puppies, your man, whatever, we can do it.

Please feel free to show this to all your nearest and dearest (and whatever strangers you run into too!) :)  I'll be sure to post again as soon as the website is up!

Also, I owe a HUGE thank you to my brother-in-law, Chris, whose amazing pictures really made all this possible (aren't the pics bee-yoo-tiful??).  There's no way we could be where we are without those pics, so THANK YOU SO MUCH and I owe you some horchata!  :)  

A Reminder That They Are Always Listening

Parker was fussing.

"What's wrong Parker, are you hungry?"

"No.  I wanna 'ote."

"What?"

"I wanna vote!"

"You want to vote?!"

"Yes."

As we exit the polling place:

"That was fun!  I had fun!  Its weally cewl!" she exclaimed to everyone waiting in line.   

Next election season I'm going to send her door to door to register new voters.  Who could say no to that kind of enthusiasm?   

This is Halloween! This is Halloween!

We're big on Halloween in the Wright house.  We started talking about costumes months ago.  Parker immediately declared she wanted to be Tinkerbell ("A pink one!") and Fin initially wanted to be an astronaut, but I was hesitant to take that at face value so far away from the actual date.  But as time went on, he kept coming back to it, so an astronaut he was.  My dad asked if was learning about astronauts, or where he came up with that idea, and I have no idea.  Fin said he didn't learn about astronauts in school, and its not something we've talked about, we've been more all about spiders and dinos.  Its funny where they come up with this stuff.  It was probably something little like he saw a show where the kid dressed up as an astronaut.    We went homemade this year, and I think they turned out pretty awesome.  Fin's entire costume cost me $6 and Parkers was under $20, but more importantly, everything can be reused as regular clothes, and dress up.  Aunt Jessi made Parker's awesome tutu, and we painted her wings.  Fin's helmet was made out of a plastic pretzel jar, and he decorated it himself.  I made his "patches" out of foam stickers.  They looked so cute.  

We started our Halloween festivities with a pumpkin carving party at Gammie and Papa's house, where we made Fin a spider pumpkin and Parker a Mickey Mouse pumpkin.  Every time Parker would look at her pumpkin, she'd hug herself tight and say, "Oh, I wuuuvv it!  I wuuuvv it!"  Unfortunately those pumpkins only lasted till Tuesday, till they all burst into hairy mold and collapsed.  I didn't see  a lot of pumpkins out this year, so I'm thinking this was a common phenomena.    On Thursday we went with our friend Christy (or "Sristy" as Fin would say) to the Circle in Orange, where they were having a "Trick or Treat" The kids walked around a bit and got some candy, played some carnival games and danced with a "boneman" in the pseudo dance club they made for the kids out of two easy-ups.  They had a blast.  And finally on Halloween night my grandparents and parents came over for pizza and lasagna before we all headed out to trick or treat.  I was nervous because Parker has been going through an "anxious" phase, where she doesn't want strangers to talk to her, look at her, acknowledge her existence.  While my grandparents aren't strangers, Parker still immediately burst into tears when they arrived and demanded to go to bed.  But two hours later she was dragging Grandpa by the hand, commanding him, " 'Ome on! ome on!  I wanna go see Halloween!" as she walked over to our neighbors house.  The house is covered top to bottom with Halloween decorations, and Parker has designated it simply as "Halloween."  While trick or treating Fin was all business, running ahead to the next house as Parker chatted with the neighbors about how cute their dogs were, or explaining that she was Tinkerbell, or exclaiming "I'm having fun!"  Fin's helmet got too hot after a while, so he'd take it off in between houses, ring a door bell, then frantically yell, "Give me the helmet, give me the helmet!!"  They lasted about an hour, and half way through we had to hold the bags ("ugh! too heaby!" Parker'd say as she handed it off to Josh)  We'll have enough candy to last us till next Halloween and I'm already having to answer "When can we go trick or treating again Mama?"

A Weekend Without Papa Bear

Included the following:

• Mama burned her finger so badly she still has no feeling in it as she types this sentence
• Fin fulfilled his life long dream to drive a battery powered vehicle (a task he took quite seriously) as Parker fulfilled her life long dream of being in a one woman parade as his passenger.  She worked that beauty pageant smile for all it was worth.
• Mama spent her first night alone (all alone, not even a bean to be had) for what may be the first time in more than six years.
• Mama was awoken at one in the morning to hear the sounds of partying in New York on her answering machine.  Twice.
• Mama got miserably lost in HB, finally found the (wrong!) house, got pulled over when she answered the phone when the lost house finally called her, talked her way out of a ticket by admitting to being completely in the wrong, horribly lost, promising to never again answer her phone while driving, and by the fact that her last ticket was in high school ("well that was a really long time ago" says the cop.  "thank you??" I replied)
• Mama, Fin and Parker got to shake hands with a monkey after he politely took our tickets and placed it in his pumpkin-festooned vest pocket.  What?  They don't have trained monkey's at your pumpkin patches?  I weep for you.
• Daddy got stuck in Atlanta and almost arrested for voicing his...annoyance.
• We met our newest addition to our extended family, baby boy Shaenen, who was delightfully tiny and mellow and sleepy.  
• We celebrated Mama's Nana's birthday with a surprise birthday party at her house, where Parker promptly burst into tears whenever anyone looked at her. (see following post for partial explanation,  she was to nap en route)
• Fin and Parker caught a cold and awoke Monday morning, sniveling and miserable.

I'm Outnumbered

"Fin, can you please leave Sissy alone, I want her to take a rest while we drive."

"But I don't want her to west.  Sissy? Do you want to take a west?"

"No!"

"See Mama, Sissy doesn't want to take a west."

"Yes, I know, but she needs to rest!"

"Sissy?  Would you like to hold hands?"

 "Yeah!"

They both smile and hold hands smugly.

I sigh and turn to Sarah, "Even if it is to spite me, is that the cutest darn thing you've ever seen?"

A Stay At Home Mom Rant

Seriously?  You're using a leaf blower right now?  A LEAF BLOWER?!  Right now when the wind is blowing so hard my windows are rattling, trees are falling down, and my screen door just came off the track?  Is that necessary?  Is your only goal in life to interrupt my kids naps?  Isn't enough you spend all morning on your riding lawn mower to mow our 10ftx10ft lawns?  The same mower that completely strips my lawn of any grass, not just clips it?  The lawn mower that terrifies my children, and backfires and gives me an aneurism?  And while we're talking, can I ask why it takes not one, not two, but THREE days to complete the lawn maintenance around here?  And why can't you use hand clippers to trim my tiny bush right in front of our windows?  What's that?  Oh, yeah, I know.  IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY NOISE.  What was I thinking...

Random Thought for the Day

The Ice Cream Truck just drove by, and instead of playing a normal ice cream truck song like "Pop Goes the Weasel" or something it was playing a song I finally recognized as the theme song in the movie Love Story.  

'Cause nothing gets the tots more excited about eating neon colored popsicles in the shape of SpongeBob like classic seventies romantic dramas.